How Can I Love When It Hurts So Much?

Have you experienced the breaking of a relationship

with someone you valued and loved?

How did it affect you?

 

When another person breaks a relationship—cutting you deeply—what are you to do?

Consulting “A Map to Guide You to Forgiveness,” orient yourself for your journey toward reconciliation. Your finger lands on the starting coordinates: “unconditional love.” You ask:

“How can I love when it hurts so much?”

“How can I exercise this kind of love?”  

“What can I do about these emotions of betrayal, anger, and bitterness that well up inside me?”

Even asking these questions tempts you to give up and forget the whole thing. 

In some ways, this post revisits aspects of the therapeutic nature of God’s agapē-love (See “The Therapy of God’s Love”).

In this post, we look inward and upward, attending to you and the state of your own soul (i.e., your emotions, thoughts, and will) before God. It is about being honest before God and to yourself in what has happened and is happening, paying attention to your emotions and thoughts, and the resulting attitudes and intentions of your heart.

The next post will provide practical guidance for facing outward in unconditional love.

Now, let’s turn to five practices of a grace-filled posture that enable you to settle yourself before God and begin to reorient yourself to the journey before you.

First, let’s understand what is meant by a “grace-filled posture.”

 

A grace-filled posture

 This is your ‘posture’ or willingness to acknowledge your need for and desire to receive God’s grace. In this ‘posture’ we admit that none of us ‘have it in us’; we must receive grace, or we cannot go any further.

Here is how Dallas Willard describes grace:

Grace is actually God acting in our lives to accomplish, with our participation, what we cannot accomplish on our own.[1] 

This grace is the triune God (Father, Son, and Spirit) acting in our lives to bring about results beyond human ability, even our ability to love when it hurts so much.

Now, let me introduce you to five dynamic practices that invite you to participate in this grace-filled posture.

 

5 Dynamic Practices

1. Invited to approach

Whether within the family, between friends, or in other relationships that are damaged or broken, there is often enough blame to spread around—and that includes blaming God, even though He is the one unblameable constant. We might ask:

“Why did God allow this to happen?” 

“Where were You?” 

“Why didn’t You stop and fix it?” 

Sometimes we may wonder if God really understands what we are experiencing. In the disorientation that accompanies breakups, there is the added danger of distancing ourselves from God.

Well, God is not distant or aloof; he understands and has experienced what you are going through.

The One True God has revealed Himself as Jesus Christ. That means that God has experienced insults and mockery, betrayal and injustice, threats and abuse. Be assured, He understands our experiences (Hebrews 4:15-16):  

For we do not have a high priest [Jesus Christ] who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

When we actively respond to this invitation to “approach the throne of grace,” we draw closer to the One who understands, and who provides the needed grace—in this case, the grace to know that “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16), that you are loved, and that you can love even when it hurts so much.

2. Invited to honesty

When we consciously approach the presence of God, whether in a communal setting, in personal prayer, or in whatever context, many often feel they must be on their best behavior. That can mean we often presume to be someone we are not.

A healthy corrective for this presumption is to acknowledge that “the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts” (1 Chronicles 28:9; Psalm 44:21; etc.). God wants us to be honest, not only with Him, but also with ourselves.

So, in the fallout of a broken or damaged relationship, what are you to do with your sense of betrayal, anger, alienation, and all the rest that goes with it? Do you try to bottle it up and keep it hidden? Do you think God will disapprove when he sees how you honestly feel?

In times like these, I encourage you to read the Psalms of Lament. An estimated one-third of the 150 psalms are in the lament category. That should tell us something.

Let’s briefly touch on just two of these psalms: Psalm 41 and 55. Hear David express his sense of betrayal, inner turmoil, pain, vulnerability, and longing to run away. He hides nothing—he is ‘letting it all out’ before God.  

In Psalm 41:9, we hear David laying out,

“Even my close friend, whom I trusted … has lifted up his heel against me.”

And in Psalm 55, which is probably set in the situation of betrayal by a close advisor, Ahithophel, and his own son, Absalom, David cries (55:12-13 NASB),

“It is not an enemy who reproaches me … but it is you, a man my equal, my companion and my familiar friend.”   

If you are in a broken relationship, take it all before God. Listen to the lament psalms. And begin to pray the lament psalms as your own.

Here is the link to “The Blessings of Lament: A disoriented soul's yearning for God,” which provides a partial list of these psalms and insights into their dynamics.

3. Invited to transparency

Perhaps this is a subset of the invitation to honesty. It is the need to see ourselves, and what we have done or not done, that might have caused or contributed to the broken or damaged relationship.

For example, even in David’s lament in Psalm 41, he is mindful of his own flaws and sin (41:4):

“O Lord, have mercy on me; heal me, for I have sinned against you.”

We are often quick to recognize the fault of others and slow to see our own. The grace-filled posture draws us to pray Psalm 139:23-24: 

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” 

In quietness, wait for His answer. Is there something about your attitudes, words, or actions that he brings to your attention? Deal with what is revealed to you. Desire and treasure being blameless before God.

4. Invited to trust

It is no coincidence that this invitation flows from the concluding dynamic element of lament psalms: trust in God. Like other lament psalms, here is how Psalm 13 concludes:

“But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me.” (13:5-6)

Despite times of disorientation with all its pain, suffering, and confusion, the psalmist chooses to trust God.      

I also encourage you to read (or re-read) “Walking in the Way of Christ.” Based on 1 Peter 2:13-25, a suffering Christian gains insight and orientation that encourages active trust in the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. In this context, Jesus is our example (2:20-23):

For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.  He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.  When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. 

You are called not to retaliate but to entrust yourself to your Father in heaven with all the unresolved messiness and pain of the circumstances. In this, you yield yourself to God, trusting him not only to set things right in the future, but also to provide his grace in the present. 

5. Invited to transformation

Jesus experienced offences, and his posture was one of unconditional love toward the offenders.

For us, as followers of Jesus, to do the same requires God’s grace active in our lives to bring about results beyond our human ability. In this grace, he empowers us to love an offender without condition. 

Loving someone who has offended you transforms you from a re-actor into a pro-actor. Instead of re-acting in anger and bitterness toward an offender, you begin pro-acting in God’s own healing and life-giving way. We will explore this in greater depth in the next post. 

We began with the question, “How can I love when it hurts so much?” I have shared some of the insights I am still learning. It is my hope that this grace-filled posture will guide you in the direction you need to travel on your journey toward reconciliation.

I look forward to your comments, questions, and recommendations. You can write me using this link. 

 

BACK TO When “I’m Offended” Means Two Different Things

TO START at the beginning of this series

Notes:

[1] In the foreword written by Dallas Willard to Gary Moon, Falling for God (Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook, 2004), x.

Photo credit: Dreaming in the deep south via Visualhunt.com / CC BY